Cloud Engineering: What to Move and not for Your Company Cloud Migration

Migrating to the cloud is a top priority for many organizations looking to undergo digital transformation. While the cloud offers benefits such as security, scalability, and availability, the migration process is complex and requires careful planning, expert support of cloud architecture, and the proper budget to succeed. It is important to note that the cloud is not a solution to all problems and can only fix issues like data security and application if addressing the underlying problems.

When considering the move to the public cloud, it is crucial to carefully evaluate which apps, tools, and data will be most suitable for this environment. It may not be wise to migrate certain elements, such as apps with high security and compliance requirements or complex legacy tools, to the cloud as they may need to be fixed in this environment. On the other hand, collaboration apps and systems that require high availability and scalability can benefit significantly from being migrated to the cloud.

Cloud Migration: What you should migrate to the public cloud for benefit:

1. Collaboration apps: Migrating collaboration apps to the cloud can benefit organizations, especially as the hybrid work model becomes more prevalent. By moving these types of apps to the cloud, organizations can facilitate seamless communication and data sharing, leading to improved operations and quicker goal achievement.
2. Systems that require high availability and scalability: This kind of system can significantly benefit from being migrated to the cloud due to its exceptional disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities. The cloud's ability to scale up or down as needed is also beneficial for apps and systems that need to adjust their capacity based on demand. Overall, these types of systems are well-suited for the cloud environment.

What you should migrate to the public cloud for benefit:

1. Collaboration apps: Migrating collaboration apps to the cloud can benefit organizations, especially as the hybrid work model becomes more prevalent. By moving these types of apps to the cloud, organizations can facilitate seamless communication and data sharing, leading to improved operations and quicker goal achievement.
2. Systems that require high availability and scalability: This kind of system can significantly benefit from being migrated to the cloud due to its exceptional disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities. The cloud's ability to scale up or down as needed is also beneficial for apps and systems that need to adjust their capacity based on demand. Overall, these types of systems are well-suited for the cloud environment.

What you shouldn't migrate to the public cloud

1. High-security apps: Apps with high security and compliance requirements may not be suitable for migration to the cloud due to concerns about control and security risks. Keeping such data and systems on-premises or in a private cloud may be more beneficial, as this can provide more control and allow for appropriate levels of security and governance to protect against attacks and misuse
2. Complex legacy tools: Complex tools are either too proprietary or too complicated for the cloud environment, may not be suitable for migration and should be left as-is. While the cloud offers some level of future-proofing, it may not be worth migrating these types of applications if they require substantial rearchitecting or recording to function properly in the cloud. In such cases, it may be more appropriate to sunset the tool rather than attempt to migrate it.
3. Highly customized systems: Applications with high dependencies and environments with technical debt may not be suitable for migration to the cloud due to the difficulty of managing and operating them in this environment, which can result in higher costs. It may be more effective to rebuild these applications using codeless or microservices-based tools in the cloud rather than attempting to migrate them.

As the global cloud computing market is expected to reach its peak by 2025, carefully planning and preparing for successful cloud migration is indispensable. This significant process requires careful planning and precision to achieve the best results. Hence, it is important to be aware of the challenges and carefully select the apps and systems that will benefit most from a cloud environment.